


Verecundia

by parabolica (orphan_account)



Category: Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Punic Wars RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:18:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5203829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/parabolica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scipio is caught scouting after the Battle of Ticinus and, taken to Hannibal's tent, he finds his enemy is not what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verecundia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarGlassShards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarGlassShards/gifts).



The ground is violent underfoot. Blade-sharp and unforgiving, and when he stumbles, when he sprawls to his full length in the mud, his captors laugh and kick him back to his feet.

Difficult, when his hands are tied and his head swathed in the stinking sweep of a Numidian horseman’s cloak, but Scipio manages it nonetheless. He will not give them the satisfaction of seeing him brought low. Not these dogs, the ones who fled before him only three days past. He had routed them, a young man charging alone into the knot of enemy cavalry surrounding the wounded consul. The small detachment of men under his command had followed, but if it had not been for his quick action, the consul—his father—would have been cut down by these vermin.

Now they have caught him. The irony tastes bitter on his tongue.

Perhaps he should be afraid, but he is a Roman. To show fear would only bring shame upon him. Better to channel his uncertain emotions towards more profitable ends, towards the chance of escape. And if escape is impossible now, towards gathering intelligence so he might escape later.

From within the hood of the cloak, he hears the Numidians’ muffled conversation. Their language is a mystery to him, but he understands from the way they guide him, with shoves and yanks, that their destination grows closer. He cannot smell anything beyond the rank odour of sweat, but he can hear voices around him, hundreds of them, each seemingly with a different tongue. His father’s army is made up of a dozen dialects and half a dozen nationalities, but the languages surrounding him here are without number.

He focuses on other sounds: the stamp and snort of horses, the steady thump-thump of a blacksmith’s hammer. The crackle of a fire. The clash of weapons. Laughter and curses and, like distant thunder, the trumpeting of an elephant.

The Numidians bunch up, jostling him. Then they melt away until only one remains. The sound of a tent flap opening. The clumsy prick of a dagger against the mound of his thumb, and then the ropes binding his wrists drop to the ground. Scipio brings his hands forward, easing the ache in his shoulders.

A hard shove in the centre of his back sends him stumbling. His foot catches on something. This time he will not fall. He regains his balance, adrenalin surging, and tears the filthy cloak from his head.

A man of middle years sits on a travelling chest. Wrapped in a plain cloak, the hem of his long tunic stained with mud, he looks unexceptionable. He glances up from the scroll in his hand, his expression mild. “Greetings.”

Scipio works the rest of the Numidian garment free from his shoulders and shudders it to the floor. He tames the riot of his hair and straightens his clothes, and all the while he considers the man on the chest. Dark hair peppered with grey. A narrow beard, olive skin, and inquisitive eyes. Greek, almost certainly, but what manner of Greek?

The scroll is set aside. “I am Silenus. A historian by trade.”

The accent is unmistakeable. Sicilian. Carthage’s old ally; now a Roman province.

Scipio says nothing. He looks around the tent, taking in the basic furnishings. Apart from the chest, there’s a folding stool, a folding table, writing implements. A bed roll on the floor rather than on a pallet. A portable brazier gives off a modicum of warmth, the scent of pine resin sharp in the air.

A humble dwelling, even for an army on the march. Scipio looks back at the Greek. “This is your tent?”

“Oh, no.” Silenus seems amused. “It belongs to General Hannibal.”

That jolts Scipio. He looks again, as if expecting plain cloth to become purple silk, wood to become gold. What he sees is in stark contrast to what he’d imagined, based on reports read out to his father. It appears that Hannibal does not surround himself with luxury after all. 

He had doubted the truth of those reports. Who would bring rare and expensive items with them on a route march over the Alps in winter? No general worthy of the rank. But though Scipio had doubted, he’d still believed what he’d been told, like any good soldier of Rome.

Silenus is watching him, head tipped to one side like a starling.

Scipio clears his throat. It seems necessary to offer an explanation. “I had heard he was acquisitive.”

A fleeting smile crosses the Greek’s face. “He is.”

Movement outside the tent, the stamp of feet, the jangle of accoutrements. The tent flap is thrust aside and a man enters, bringing with him a swirl of cold. From the change in Silenus’ demeanour, Scipio understands that this is Hannibal Barca.

_He is not as tall as me_. The momentary, ridiculous, flash of triumph that goes through Scipio soon vanishes, swallowed up by the power of Hannibal’s presence. The Carthaginian exudes charisma, and Scipio is ashamed to realise that, in measuring his father against this man, his father comes off the worst.

It should not be so. His father is of the Cornelii. Wealthy, powerful, respected. A consul of Rome. This man, this Carthaginian—he is dressed against the cold in trousers and a belted tunic like a barbarian tribesman. The only outward sign of rank is the rich, red cloak of heavy wool slung around his shoulders and held in place by a battered bronze fibula in the shape of some twisted barbaric animal.

Frost glitters over him like silver. His boots leave a trail of mud-wet prints as he approaches.

“The Numidians said they had a gift for me.” His Greek is faultless, though it carries the thicker vowels of the Lacedaemonians. “What is your name, boy?”

Scipio bristles at the mocking of his youth and all the implications it carries. “Publius Cornelius Scipio.”

“You bear the same name as your father.”

A statement, not a question; it seems unnecessary to respond. Scipio stands tall—taller—as Hannibal comes closer. As smartly as if on parade in the Field of Mars, Scipio snaps to attention. Enemy he might be, but Hannibal is a general, and he will accord him due respect.

“Prettier than his father.” The observation is a casual aside. Silenus murmurs something in return, and Hannibal laughs.

Rigid, blazing with affront, Scipio keeps his head held high. Hannibal walks around him at a leisurely pace. The scent of horseflesh and leather follows in his wake, along with a darker, muskier smell Scipio can’t place. 

From the corners of his eyes he studies his enemy. Men would describe Hannibal as of noble bearing, athletic build, and commanding mien. Women would simply call him handsome.

Scipio compresses his lips as if this could quell the tiny spark of attraction. Hannibal is ten or so years his senior, like the men in the gymnasium with whom he’d traded hot, furtive glances. Of course he had been scrupulously careful never to accept anything from those men, neither gifts nor blandishments. He had his future in public office to consider, and wanted no whispered inferences when the time came.

Nevertheless, in private he’d imagined what might have happened, if he had not been patrician. If he had not been their equal. If he had been their property. A slave. A captive brought before them in chains...

Those were youthful fantasies, nothing more. Fodder for fleeting, self-administered pleasure. But now, while the chains are absent, he is most certainly a captive, and instead of a handsome patrician who understands the rules of common decency, he faces a Carthaginian general.

A barbarian.

An oath-breaker.

“The Numidians were generous,” Hannibal says. “Three days ago you made them look foolish. Hardened warriors driven off by a mere youth. Intriguing that they didn’t kill you when you crossed their path a second time.”

Finding his voice, Scipio speaks in clearest, purest Attic Greek. “Perhaps they respected the filial bond they witnessed when I rescued my father.”

“Perhaps.” A smile plays about Hannibal’s lips. His beard is trimmed, shaped around a strong jaw. “Whatever the reason, here you are. A veritable Achilles.”

“I am no Achilles.”

The rebuttal flashes from him. Nonetheless, Scipio is aware of the compliment. Possessed of tawny hair, blue eyes, and long limbs honed by daily exercise, he knows a superficial comparison can be made between himself and the Achaean hero. Even if at present his face is all angles and awkwardness, in Rome his body is admired by slave girls and patrician ladies alike.

And now, apparently, by Hannibal Barca.

He has the unnerving feeling that Hannibal sees not the young man standing before him, but some other man. A future Scipio, one shaped by greater experience. One who can be—who is, perhaps—Achilles.

It is not an easy thought. He repeats his belief. “I am no Achilles.”

Hannibal looks intrigued. “Why not?”

“Achilles was ruled by anger.”

“By passion, some would say.”

Scipio flicks a glance at Silenus, sitting silent on the travelling chest. “We should appeal to an arbiter. One whose knowledge of the poem doubtless overshadows our own. What opinion does the Greek historian hold?”

“Anger and passion are one and the same,” Silenus says. “Rage and desire share a common root. Both,” he adds with the suggestion of a smile, “are emotions shared by choleric personalities.”

Scipio considers this. Was his action in saving his father the result of impetuousness? Had he done it cold-bloodedly, saving the consul for the good of the state, or had he been hot with desperation, a son frantic to save his father from the humiliation of defeat?

In truth he can’t remember. Three days ago, it was, and he can’t recall anything more than snatches of individual moments—the chafing of his thighs, the snap of his cloak streaming behind him, the whip of his horse’s mane in his face as he bent forward in the saddle. The guttural cry that wrenched from him as he plunged amongst the Numidian cavalry. Metal glinting. Blood pumping. His breath locked in his throat as he laid about the enemy. His father’s expression, as blank and rigid as an ancestral mask, carved from pride.

His mind turns to what Silenus’ speech revealed about Hannibal. A choleric man would possess the natural qualities of leadership to drive an army through hostile ground in winter, but in order to achieve success, the burning impulse must be tempered by level-headed planning. Hannibal’s ruling temperament may well be choleric, but he must also be phlegmatic and sanguine. Perhaps he even has a touch of melancholy as a goad towards greater strivings.

How does one attract these qualities? Hannibal is but a decade his senior, not yet of an age where, in Rome, if he was of the right family, he would be allowed to stand for quaestor, yet already he seems fully formed. Complete in every way.

Scipio resolves to use this opportunity to study his enemy. No matter what indignities are heaped upon his person, he will learn from this and he will take the lessons back to his father’s camp, and he will—

“If you are not Achilles,” Hannibal interrupts his thoughts, “which of Homer’s figures would you be?”

Figures, not heroes. Scipio registers the difference but doesn’t pause to ponder it. He lifts his chin. “Doubtless you would be Odysseus.”

The jibe slides off like a badly-aimed knife turned from a plated cuirass. Hannibal laughs. “I am not that cunning, no matter what you Romans think of my people.”

“You deny your victories are won by trickery, double-dealing, and treachery?”

“I plan my battles with common sense, nothing more.”

Scipio bats the answer aside. “If you are not Odysseus, then who?”

“Menelaus,” Hannibal says. “A man offered insult in his own home. A man who had his dignity stolen from him. Of all of those princes, he had the right to declare war.” He pauses, dark eyes narrowing in thought. “Which means, I think, that you would be Agamemnon.”

Silence drifts around the tent while Scipio absorbs this pronouncement. This time, he knows there is insult along with the compliment. He knows it is aimed not at him, but at Rome. That doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Hannibal shifts on his feet, his cloak swinging as he turns. “You are weary. Probably hungry, too. You will wish to rest and refresh yourself.”

“But,” surprise prompts Scipio to protest, “I am your enemy.”

“The laws of _xenia_ still apply.”

Residual anger sputters into flame. “Is that why he’s here?” Scipio flings a gesture towards Silenus. “You affect guest-friendship for the sake of your pet historian, so he will write of your magnanimity towards the Romans?”

Hannibal smiles. “I affect nothing, young Scipio.” He lifts the tent flap and gives an order in Punic to someone stationed outside. “I have asked for warm water to be brought, so you might wash.”

“I am no effeminate barbarian to need coddling.” Scipio holds himself stiff again, injecting pride into his tone. “Cold water hardens a man.”

“So does stubbornness.” Hannibal gestures for Silenus to leave, but lingers himself a moment longer, his gaze thoughtful when it touches on Scipio. “Bathe. Rest. We will talk further.”

* * *

Only a fool would refuse the luxury of a warm bath. Scipio justifies his decision, telling himself it is no more than he deserves; and besides, he is accustomed to washing in warm water in his father’s tent.

Afterwards, he dresses in his mud-stained, mud-stiffened clothes and thrusts his feet into boots warmed by the brazier. A glance into the travelling chest reveals clean garments, but he will not dress like a Carthaginian. Although, perhaps...

The Numidian cavalryman’s cloak still lies on the floor. It is a shapeless dark thing that stinks, but if he wraps himself in it, he might pass as one of this mercenary army.

Mindful of his shadow, he creeps to the side of the tent and examines its moorings. A simple construction, nothing more than fabric pulled taut and fastened in place by wooden stakes. He eases out one of the stakes and peers beneath the loosened canvas. Another tent is placed nearby, the gap between them too narrow to act as a thoroughfare. Scipio wraps the cloak over his head and ducks out, wriggling through the gap. With every heartbeat he expects discovery, but as he slips away from the tent there’s no arresting shout, no alarm raised.

Hannibal Barca is a confident man indeed, to be so lax with security. In the Roman camp, soldiers ring Scipio’s father’s tent; but then his father is not merely a general, but a consul.

It is late afternoon. The sun is setting and a chill spreads through the air, harbinger of another hard night. Dark clouds pile up to the north-west, churning like ink in water. All around him is the smell of humanity, sweat and dirt, shit and blood, sour wine and cooked food. Gathered around camp fires, men sleep and scrap and gamble.

No one challenges him. He attracts barely any attention at all. His stomach clenches every time someone nods to him or grunts a greeting, but it’s as if he’s protected by the Numidian cloak. Silently Scipio gives thanks that the Carthaginian army is composed of so many disparate elements.

He walks purposefully, heading not for the outer limits of the camp but towards the animals. His chances of escape will increase dramatically if he can steal a horse. Maybe one of the Numidian horses. That would be justice of a kind, if he could take one of their animals and set loose the rest. He’s imagining the chaos this would cause when a bugling call echoes across the rows of tents.

The war elephants.

Scipio turns in their direction, his heart pounding. The horses can wait. He needs to gather as much information about the enemy as he can. His father needs reliable intelligence, and who could be more reliable than his son? For the sake of Rome, he must run the risk of discovery in order to get close to the elephants.

But it’s not just for Rome that he does this. In truth he has always wanted to see a war elephant up close.

Arrayed on the battlefield, they are a terrible sight. Colossi of destruction, armoured and caparisoned in rich colours, driven on by mahouts calling out in a language understood only by the elephants. Their feet shake the ground when they walk, and when they charge, it is as if Jupiter himself has set loose a thunderstorm. The noise of their trumpeting blocks out all sound. Their ears flap gouts of dust, and their trunks swing wildly, and their tusks glint with razor-sharp plate, tearing, slicing.

Here, in an area to the rear of the camp, the elephants stand quiet and docile. Whenever one shifts, a bell around its neck jingles. A pair rubs shoulders, their trunks curled into each other’s mouths. It’s a strangely endearing sight. Perhaps they’re siblings, or a parent and child. Or perhaps—is it possible?—these elephants are friends.

Straw scatters the ground. The mahouts are working, moving amongst the animals and patting them, talking to them. Three men clamber over one large bull, cleaning its hide with stiff bristle-brushes. Despite the cold, they’re stripped down to leggings and kilted tunics, their cloaks and bags abandoned on the ground.

Scipio seizes his chance. Moving quickly, he searches through the belongings and finds a knife. Small but sharp, it fits into the palm of his hand. He retreats to the other side of the elephant enclosure before slipping the weapon inside his right boot.

The theft makes his pulse race faster.

A cow elephant investigates a watermelon, using her trunk to pick it up and hurl it to the ground. The fruit splits open, and she eats, her trunk delicately swiping up each juicy piece, rind and all.

Scipio stands motionless at what he considers a safe distance away. All safety is relative, of course. He pushes aside the thought and gazes greedily at the huge animals. In the approaching dusk their eyes shine gold, reflecting the sunset. They appear to have no interest in him.

The mahouts share their lack of concern. Scipio is grateful yet again for the Numidian cloak. He counts the elephants—thirty-seven of the beasts, mostly male—then, keeping his movements natural and confident, he approaches the largest bull.

A basket of fruit lies nearby. He picks up a melon and holds it clutched in both hands, head going back as he looks up, up. The bull elephant considers him and flaps its ears. A ripple of movement, but Scipio freezes, unsure whether this is a warning or a welcome. The elephant raises its trunk, the wet pink nostrils flaring as it sniffs him.

“I bathed,” he tells the elephant. “I don’t smell nearly as bad as you.”

The animal rumbles in response. The deep earthy scent surrounding it seems familiar, and after a moment Scipio remembers—this is the smell Hannibal carried with him. Horses, leather, and elephants. The stink of a Carthaginian general. 

“Here.” Scipio crouches and smashes the watermelon on a rock. It takes three attempts to do what the cow managed with one flick of her trunk, but the bull seems to appreciate the effort. It rumbles again and shifts closer, its bell tinkling. Its legs are as gnarled and wide as trees in the Hercynian Forest.

He feeds the elephant. While it polishes off the last piece of melon, he reaches out and pats its leg. Its hide is bristly. Warm. Not at all like he’d expected.

The bull doesn’t mind being touched. It snuffles at him, long trunk curling inquisitively. The path of its interest is marked by slime. Scipio exclaims, stepping back, and the elephant drapes its trunk around his shoulders in a display of camaraderie. Wetness oozes, smearing across the Numidian cloak and daubing Scipio’s hands.

Laughter breaks out nearby. From the pockets of shadows in the gathering dusk, Hannibal appears, accompanied by a mahout.

“He likes you.” Hannibal grins as the bull elephant starts blowing bubbles.

Scipio shrugs off the weight of its trunk and moves smartly away. To think he’d considered these animals noble and terrifying beasts! The elephant flaps its great ears at him as if in farewell. Scipio scowls back at it, then he scowls at the laughing mahout and Hannibal, whose eyes gleam with admiration and amusement.

“You knew.” Scipio’s temper rises. “You let me escape.”

“Ah, but you haven’t escaped,” Hannibal corrects him. “You came to see the war elephants.”

Scipio turns his head, his breaths sharp, his chest aching.

It stings his pride that he was so easily gulled. He’d thought himself so clever, escaping from the tent disguised in a cavalryman’s cloak. He’d thought he was as good as invisible, passing amongst an army that for the past six months had accompanied Hannibal from New Carthage to this muddy encampment to the north of the River Po. Only now does he understand that the cloak was no disguise at all.

He was allowed to escape. Permitted to wander through the camp. Hannibal wanted him to know the strength of his army. Wanted him to report to the consul, his father, that despite the privations they’d suffered on the journey through the Alps, despite hunger and cold and exhaustion, the Carthaginians were more than ready to carry this fight on to Rome itself.

He starts when, careless of the elephant slime, Hannibal throws an arm around his shoulders. “Dine with me,” Hannibal says, and Scipio stares at him, stares at dark eyes and a smiling mouth and the warmth of charisma, and then he remembers the knife.

It is said that an elephant can be routed by the sight of a mouse. Perhaps—

“Come, young Scipio, do not refuse. I have a good Chian wine to share.” Now the smile is inviting, promising more than the basic tenets of _xenia_.

Emotions clash and twine inside him. “You are not what I expected.”

Hannibal lifts an eyebrow. “That makes you angry.”

Scipio is silent. He wants to deny it, but can’t. Worse, he can’t decide where his anger lies—with Hannibal, for refusing to be the barbarian of his imagination, or with Rome, for fostering that belief in the first place.

* * *

The conversation over dinner is civilised. They both steer away from contentious topics and debate instead the merits of Herodotus and the poems of Alcaeus. As the Chian wine—dark, flavoursome, of excellent vintage—continues to flow, Scipio experiences a loosening of mistrust. He relaxes, and as he looks around the sparse comforts of the tent, the pine scent now slumberous, the canvas walls lit by a dim golden glow, he thinks how content he feels here.

More content than he feels in his father’s house in Rome.

The realisation jolts him. The wine turns to vinegar on his tongue. What is he doing? Only a traitor would be so at ease with his enemy. Only a man who had lost sight of all that was good and noble and ideal about the Roman state could share a meal with a Carthaginian. By Mars and Minerva, he’d eaten sitting up like a common barbarian, and so enthralled had he been by their talk of Persia and Egypt, he hadn’t even noticed!

He sends another glance around the tent. Now the shadows seem to press in. Now he notices the bed roll. They’re alone, the meal finished over an hour ago. Only the wine jug keeps them company. He has drunk freely of its contents, thinking to match Hannibal cup for cup, but now he wonders. Has Hannibal been fooling him, pretending to drink, pretending bonhomie? Is Hannibal sober, waiting for the chance to trick him into a seduction?

_He would not need trickery_. Heat flushes Scipio’s cheeks. He tries to deny it, but the attraction shimmers between them, waiting for a spark to send the kindling up in flames. No matter. He cannot give in to desire. It is shameful to submit to another man. To be penetrated by the enemy, by a barbarian... It is unthinkable.

And yet he thinks it.

Scipio shifts position. He can feel the knife tucked inside his boot. His mind clears, lust chased away by self-preservation. “I must admit,” he says, conscious of the heavy silence around them, “I expected Silenus to join us this evening.”

Hannibal pours the last dribble of wine from the jug. “He dined with Sosylus. A fellow Greek, though from Sparta, and a fellow historian.”

The remark triggers an idea, one that will surely put distance between them and remind them both of their respective positions.

“Why do you have historians with you? To glorify your war, or to justify it?”

Hannibal pauses while he considers. Finally he says, “To understand it.”

It is not the expected answer. Scipio agitates the wine lees, sending them swirling.

“Ah, young Scipio,” says Hannibal, smiling, “whatever shall I do with you?”

Scipio sets down his cup. “You will let me go.” Confidence rings from his voice. “You wouldn’t have allowed me to wander through the ranks of your army, otherwise. You wouldn’t have given me the opportunity to estimate your fighting strength, to notice the number of wounded, to cast my eye over your supply train. You wouldn’t have permitted me to approach your elephants. You allowed all of this because you intend to set me free in the expectation that I will carry tales of your army’s strength back to my father, so he will run.”

Hannibal’s laughter is warm, but not mocking. “Your father is already running, young Scipio. If he had but half the courage of his son...”

The compliment pleases him, but it also acts as a goad. In a moment of clarity, Scipio understands what he must do. There is only one honourable way to end this.

He rises to his feet, ignoring the fuzziness of his body’s responses. He is strong. Confident. A Roman. He fixes Hannibal with a look and draws in a breath. “Hannibal Barca,” he says, as solemn as the Pontifex Maximus inspecting the entrails, “I challenge you to single combat.”

“Do you, indeed.” A lazy smile tilts Hannibal’s lips, but his body is coiled tense and ready.

The bold words flutter away like ash. Scipio’s heart pounds so hard he can hear it thudding in his ears. “It will be a noble reckoning. Like that of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and the Gallic king Britomarus.”

“Britomarus was slaughtered and stripped of his armour,” Hannibal says. “Is that what you wish for me?”

The question pierces Scipio. He has no answer. Taking a few steps back, he bends to slip the mahout’s knife from his boot. It trembles in his hand, the light from the brazier glinting along the length of the blade, and then he holds himself still. Waiting.

“Very well, then.” Hannibal stands, unfastening his cloak and letting it drop. He produces a dagger, wicked and glittering, a weapon that puts Scipio’s knife to shame.

Scipio marvels at the depth of Carthaginian cunning. He could have sworn that Hannibal wore no weapons, but here is the truth. They are serpents, these Carthaginians; the type that wear false colours, that pretend to be harmless grass snakes until they sink their fangs into unsuspecting flesh and spread poison.

Still, he reasons, he is younger than Hannibal. Younger and faster.

Hannibal flicks back the dark waves of hair that frame his face. A smile flashes out. “But let us be civilised about this. To first blood, shall we say?”

Scipio nods. “To first blood.”

The words have scarcely left his mouth when Hannibal attacks. He doesn’t circle around the remains of their meal but charges straight across, overturning the wine jug and the cups, trampling the dishes. He comes not with a ferocious battle-cry but with laughter, his expression wild and joyful.

The dagger slices through the air. Scipio jerks back, losing his balance for a heartbeat then recovering it, using his momentum to duck and twist beneath the arc of the blade. The Numidian cloak ripples in his wake. He spins around, hearing the hiss of the dagger cutting through the cloth. Scipio ducks again, turning back towards Hannibal and lashing out with the knife and with his foot.

The kick connects. It jars his body, and that physical reminder shocks him into focus. The warm haze of alcohol falls away. Now he is fighting for his life. For Rome. For his pride.

Scipio darts behind the brazier and throws off the borrowed cloak. He watches Hannibal, weighing his movements as he circles from side to side, attempting to flush Scipio away from the glowering heat.

“Come,” Hannibal says, beckoning with the blade. “Attack me.”

Sweat feels its way down Scipio’s spine. The air is chilly, the walls of the tent moving, the ropes creaking, as the wind hurries through the camp. He works moisture into his mouth. “Be ready to defend yourself.” He lunges forward in a feint then just as quickly withdraws. Repeating the move on the other side, he watches for signs of weakness, of Hannibal favouring one position over another.

“Is this the Roman way of negotiation?” Amusement in Hannibal’s tone. His eyes are bright. “Bring on the battle. I hear the Roman path to victory is a reliance on superior strength and effort. Show me the truth of it.”

Scipio bares his teeth and attacks, flinging himself to the left in a parabola that takes him beyond the reach of the dagger and spins him around to Hannibal’s back. He lifts his knife and rushes at his enemy, the glow of the brazier still warm on his face, the scent of pine as heady as Chian wine.

Hannibal turns. Side-steps. Catches him a blow to the stomach.

Surprise makes him stumble. His breath is driven from his lungs. Scipio gasps, doubling over, driving back with the knife even as he goes to his knees. He hears a stifled sound, then pain flares as Hannibal seizes his wrist, fingers digging in tight between the bones, and wrenches his arm behind and up his back.

The mahout’s knife clatters harmlessly to the floor. Scipio takes a breath against the fiery burn of his pinioned arm and hurls himself at Hannibal. If he can make him stumble... The pain becomes agony, but Scipio refuses to surrender. He twists like an eel, wrenching his shoulder, and butts against Hannibal’s leg. He gets a faceful of cloth, a smothering of musky, masculine scent, and then Scipio bites at Hannibal’s thigh.

“You little demon!”

Hannibal’s hand in his hair, yanking him away. Involuntary tears of pain smudge his vision. Scipio hears the whistle of a blade and drops flat. His pinioned arm almost pulls from its socket. He ignores the pain and heaves forward like a caterpillar, curling around Hannibal’s legs like a cat, and then putting all his weight into it, he rolls sideways.

Hannibal goes crashing to the floor.

The grip on his arm loosens. Scipio hauls himself free and tries to crawl away, but his injured arm won’t support him. He collapses, then forces himself up. The mahout’s knife is but a short distance away. Hannibal’s dagger lies even closer. If he can only reach it—

“No.” Hannibal’s weight upon him. Hannibal turning him, straddling him. His arms pinned above his head, Hannibal leaning over him, their breaths panting, mingling. The scent of wine and exertion. Sweat shining. Heat like a bath house furnace, and excitement, wild as Thessalian horses, galloping through his veins.

Scipio bucks up, not so much trying to get free but to get closer. Hannibal’s thighs are wrapped around his hips, holding him down. Against his belly he feels the strong thrust of Hannibal’s erection.

It should frighten him, but it does not. Scipio squirms, rubbing his own aching cock against Hannibal’s weight. Lust makes him dizzier than any wine. His mouth is dry, thirsty for kisses from his enemy, but despite his body’s cravings, Scipio remains defiant.

“You will never make me submit.”

“Indeed.” Hannibal shifts against him, sliding a hand up Scipio’s thigh. His tunic has ridden up in their struggles and the thin, clinging wool of his leggings hides nothing. He might as well be naked for all the protection it offers.

Hannibal’s hand is warm, leisurely in its progress.

“Get off me,” Scipio snaps, struggling to free himself. He thrashes about, only to go still when Hannibal palms his cock.

They stare at each other. Then, quite deliberately, the grip on Scipio’s hands is released. Hannibal withdraws his arm, turning it so the light catches on the shining trail of blood.

Scipio stares. He’s won, yet he feels no sense of triumph. He’s won, but he is still a prisoner. He’s won, and he wishes he had not.

Hannibal seems to understand his conflict. Though he’s set Scipio’s hands free, he does not do the same with Scipio’s cock. He continues to explore, a rough, greedy touch through the fine-knit leggings. Fondling, stroking, he takes so many liberties that Scipio is obliged to push at him.

But his arms do not obey. Instead of forcing the enemy away, they twine about Hannibal’s neck and bring him closer. They pull at the Carthaginian, urgent and demanding, reshaping them both until the two men lie pressed together. A rhythm takes them and they fight to follow its command, tunic hems pushed up, leggings and trousers pulled off, a puzzle of clothing and flesh and hair and heat interlocking to create a new being.

Hannibal nips at Scipio’s throat, drawing a moan from him. “Please.” The request is edged with fire. “Stop this. It’s—”

“Pleasurable,” Hannibal says, dark eyes gleaming and intent, his chest heaving and a flush striping across his face.

Scipio shakes his head, tawny damp hair sticking to his forehead, his cheeks. “Shameful,” he says. “It’s shameful.” It hits him then, shame burning through him to tangle with the desperation and the hunger and the wanting.

Hannibal’s expression gentles. “In this you are wrong,” he says. “Coupling should not be about making one party submit. It should be a sport of equals, with both parties striving to annihilate the other with pleasure.” He rolls them over, bringing Scipio down between his raised thighs. Lifting an eyebrow in affectionate challenge, he says, “Permit me to demonstrate, Publius Cornelius. You may fuck me, if it pleases you.”

It does.

Oh, it does.

* * *

At Hannibal’s command, Silenus accompanies Scipio part of the way to rejoin the consular forces at Placentia. If Silenus knows what passed between Hannibal and Scipio last night, he gives no sign of it. Indeed, he says nothing at all for the length of the journey.

A silent Greek is a novelty. A silent Greek historian makes Scipio nervous.

“Farewell,” Silenus says when they part.

Scipio waits for something more, perhaps some piece of advice or wisdom. When the Greek turns to go without uttering another word, Scipio says, “Is that it? No final speech glorifying Carthage and denigrating Rome?”

Silenus stares at the level plains, at the mud churned through it where an army had retreated. “Poets write of the glory of war. I am only an historian.” He offers a small smile. “Farewell, Publius Cornelius Scipio the Younger. Perhaps we will meet again some day.”

When the Greek’s mare is but a speck in the distance, Scipio spurs his own mount—a Numidian horse—on towards the town.

At the gate he is recognised and waved through. Leaving the animal to be cared for in the temporary stables, he walks through the deserted, half-built streets of the colony until he finds a group of soldiers. From them he obtains an escort and is taken straight to where his father has a command post high on the walls.

“Publius.” His father greets him without emotion. No hug, not even a hand on his shoulder; no warmth in his eyes, no smile of gratitude or relief. Just an acknowledgement of his existence, the tiny cog returned to the machinery of war.

Scipio rests his hands on the palisade and looks out towards the distant haze that is the Carthaginian army. They will be here within a matter of hours: their cavalry, their infantry, their Gallic allies and their loyal men from Iberia and Lusitania, their mercenaries from Numidia and Celtiberia; they will come with their war elephants ready to split skulls like watermelons, and at their head will be their general, Hannibal Barca.

An oath-breaker.

But not a barbarian.


End file.
